Treaty of Trianon

“ The Federal Council makes the most express reservations to the interpretation to be given to the statement mentioned in the last paragraph of the above Article for insertion in the Treaty of Peace, which provides that "the stipulations of the Treaties of 1815 and other supplementary acts concerning the free zones of Haute-Savoie and the Gex district are no longer consistent with present conditions." ”

“ The High Contracting Parties will subject contraventions of paragraph (a) of Article 231 to the same penalties as are at present provided by their legislation for trading with the enemy. Those who have not prohibited trading with the enemy will enact provisions punishing the above-mentioned contraventions with severe penalties. The High Contracting Parties will similarly prohibit within their territory all legal process relating to payment of enemy debts, except in accordance with the provisions of this Annex. ”

“ The right to conquer the territory of the enemy, and levy contributions, is claimed under the laws of nations. Congress could not have directed the mode of carrying on the war. The consequences of acts done under the laws of nations are just the same in this government as in all others. The theory that a conquest accrues to the king in England is merely technical. As to Florida, the treaty was not ratified until 1821 or 1822, although made in 1819. ”

“ He may change the form of government and the laws at his pleasure, and may exercise every attribute of sovereignty. The conquered territory becomes a part of the domain of the conqueror, subject to the right of the nation to which it belonged to recapture it if they can. By reason of this right to recapture, the title of the conqueror is not perfect until confirmed by treaty of peace. But this imperfection in his title is, practically speaking, important only in case of alienation made by the conqueror before treaty. If he sells, he sells subject to the right of recapture. ”

“ It is in fact plain that there is no probability of France obtaining the concessions from the Treaty Powers, on which Thiers professed to reckon. The result already is that, whatever may have been the intention, the Mercantile Marine Law is in practice a blow which falls on England, and not on other European Powers. Unless the French Government means to give us a real most favoured nation clause, the result of denouncing our treaty will be to place us, when it expires, at a special disadvantage as compared with other nations. ”

“ That the annulment of the grant to the Duke of Alagon, declared by the treaty of cession of the Floridas, is binding and absolutely conclusive upon all the departments of the government and upon the people of the United States.
By the Constitution of the United States, the political power of making treaties is vested in the President of the United States by and with the advice and consent of the Senate, (art. 2, § 2.) ”

“ If any such power is to be given to the President by treaty, it is not merely to regulate the mode and manner of exercising an existing power; but must be a treaty creating the power, and founded upon the mere comity of nations, and not resting upon any obligation, the performance of which a foreign nation has a right to demand of our government. This power to surrender fugitives from justice, to a foreign government, has its foundation, its very life and being, in a treaty, to be made between the United States and such foreign government ”

“ If the President and the Senate alone possess the power to repeal or modify a law found in a treaty, inasmuch as they can change or abrogate one treaty only by making another inconsistent with the first, the Government of the United States could not act at all, to that effect, without the consent of some foreign Government. ”

“ But we presume that no one will dispute the possession of this power by the general government. It is clearly included in the treaty-making power, and the corresponding power of appointing and receiving ambassadors, and other public ministers. The power to make treaties is given by the Constitution in general terms, without any description of the objects intended to be embraced by it; and, consequently, it was designed to include all those subjects, which in the ordinary intercourse of nations had usually been made subjects of negotiation and treaty ”

“ On the 4th of July we reached Saint-Fal, and yonder lay Troyes before us—a town which had a burning interest for us boys; for we remembered how seven years before, in the pastures of Domremy, the Sunflower came with his black flag and brought us the shameful news of the Treaty of Troyes—that treaty which gave France to England, and a daughter of our royal line in marriage to the Butcher of Agincourt. ”

“ In all the development of diplomacy from Charles VIII’s invasion of Italy in 1494 to the close of the Thirty Years’ War, thence, for a hundred years, to the Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle, and occasionally, at least, since that Treaty, the leading influence has been exerted by the consideration of the balance of power, with its nice avoidance of a hegemony, and its requirement of guarantees, in principle and in effective force, for the rights and security of the smaller States. ”

“ For the treaty made in time of peace the Senate, and perhaps the people, were consulted; but this could hardly have been the case with the treaty which closed a war and which was made on the field of battle. In the Republic there survives a shadowy and disputed right of the imperator in the field to make a treaty which shall bind the people. The right was denied, but only on the ground that the general could not take an oath binding on the public conscience. ”

“ Our pretended treaties, then, being made with no legitimate or bona fide nations, or representatives of nations, and being made, on our part, by persons who have no legitimate authority to act for us, have intrinsically no more validity than a pretended treaty made by the Man in the Moon with the king of the Pleiades. ”

“ The plenipotentiaries of Great Britain, Austria, France, Russia, Sardinia, and Turkey, assembled in February, 1856, at the close of the Crimean war, to negotiate what is known as the Treaty of Paris. It is evident from the Protocols of their Conference, that, having the Earl of Clarendon and Lord Cowley among them, they were intent on giving weight and perpetuity to this firman of the Sultan, by a formal recognition of it in the treaty. ”

“ The publication of the Treaty, in which the Emperor has behaved so admirably, will do an infinity of good—or will, at any rate, lay the ground for it—and this will grow as the terms of it are better understood. Why is an opportunity to be made for the light-minded and the evil-minded to point to other ambiguities or conduct on questions in which it is of such vast importance that France and England should have a common feeling? ”

“ The law of nations would have given this guaranty if the treaty had been silent upon the subject, and the result would have been the same if the territory had been acquired by conquest and not by cession. ”

“ There is a strong disposition in our countrymen to discontinue even these; and very possibly it may be done. Consuls will be continued as usual. The interest which European nations feel, as well as ourselves, in the mutual patronage of commercial intercourse, is a sufficient stimulus on both sides to insure that patronage. A treaty, contrary to that interest, renders war necessary to get rid of it.
I send this by Chancellor Livingston, named to the Senate the day after I came into office, as our Minister Plenipotentiary to France. ”

“ No one suggests that we should form fresh alliances or draw up a new treaty so as to fetter ourselves with obligations thoughtlessly incurred. Let there be free intercourse between us, a mutual recognition of reciprocal rights; let us not, by closing our own frontiers, shut ourselves off at the same time from the king's dominions; let it not be possible for our runaway slaves to find shelter anywhere. What is there in all this that conflicts with the terms of our treaty with Rome? Why do we make so much of a little matter and throw suspicion upon what is simple and straightforward ? ”

“ Italy pledges herself to conclude with Turkey by the same time the latter shall renew her treaties of commerce with the other Powers, a treaty of commerce on the basis of European public law, that is to say, Italy consents to leave to Turkey all the latter's economic independence and the right, in commercial and customs matters, to act like all other European Powers, and without being bound by the capitulations and other acts, entered into up to this day. ”

“ Gentlemen have spoken here of voting millions to build ships, and placing the army and navy at the disposition of the President in the event that England act inconsistently with treaty stipulations. This is done because, if England violates a treaty with us, our national honor is injured. Now, I should like to know if it becomes us to violate a treaty made with the Indians when we please, regardless of every principle of truth and of honor? We should be careful if it were with a power able to war with us ”

“ Italian statesmen have no right to measure the trustworthiness of other nations in the same proportion as they measured their own loyalty to a treaty. [Loud cheers.] Germany, by her word, guaranteed that the concessions would be carried through. There was no occasion for distrust. Why too late? On May 4 the Trentino was the same territory as it was in February, and a whole series of concessions had been added to the Trentino of which nobody had thought in the Winter. ”

“ A political event occurred, however, at the close of it, which was even of greater influence in the end, than all the victories of the year, the ratification namely of a treaty of alliance between the powerful Achæan confederacy and the Roman republic, by the consequences of which, joined to the events of the past campaign, all northern Greece from the Isthmus of Corinth to the line formed by the Aöus and Penëus rivers, and the ridges of Lingon and Cercetium, was united under the eagles of the republic against Philip. ”

“ A fresh treaty was accordingly made by your government. Now, if no treaties have any binding force for you unless they have been made with the authority of your senate or by order of your Assembly, we, on our side, cannot possibly be bound by Hasdrubal's treaty, which he made without our knowledge. Drop all allusions to Saguntum and the Ebro, and speak out plainly what has long been secretly hatching in your minds." Then the Roman, gathering up his toga, said, "Here we bring you war and peace, take which you please." ”

“ When either refers to individual cases of treaty-making under the kings, he never connects the assembly with the proceedings. [1020] It is significant, too, that the formula of treaty makes the king the only actor, taking no account of the people. [1021] Usually peace continued merely through the lifetime of the king who contracted it, [1022] but a truce for a definite period was binding to the end, even after his death. [1023] Under the republic to the time of the decemvirs the treaty-making power resided in the consuls [175] and senate. ”

“ Had not even the English soldiers declared that, when attacked by the terrible Maiden, they had seen what appeared to be flights of white butterflies sparkling all around her form! How could these good people of Troyes hope to withstand such a power? To add to this fear, it was remembered by the citizens of Troyes that in it had been signed and concluded the shameful treaty by which Charles VII. had been disinherited from his crown and possessions. The people therefore gave in without further struggle. ”

“ In such a treaty, binding in the first instance for thirty years, the petition affirms that the three northern kingdoms will have an efficient moral support when there is occasion to with [Pg 17] stand the efforts of the great powers to entice or to threaten any of them to take part in war as allies on one side or the other. Such a treaty will, therefore, in great measure serve to preserve the neutrality of the northern kingdoms, and thereby their lasting independence. ”

“ The principal articles of the treaty provided, that the contracting parties should mutually aid each other against all enemies; that they should reciprocally prefer this alliance to that with any other, the vicar of Christ excepted; that the Spanish sovereigns should enter into no understanding with any power, the vicar of Christ excepted, prejudicial to the interests of France; that their children should not be disposed of in marriage to the kings of England, or of the Romans, or to any enemy of France, without the French king's consent. ”

“ The attempts of Blaine and Frelinghuysen to bring about a modification of the Clayton-Bulwer treaty were, as we have seen, unsuccessful. In fact, their only effect was to strengthen the British government for the time being in the determination to hold us more strictly to the terms of that convention. In 1896 Secretary Olney in a review of the situation declared:
Upon every principle which governs the relations to each other, either of nations or of individuals, the United States is completely estopped from denying that the treaty is in full force and vigor. ”

“ That he had religiously adhered to the stipulations of the treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle, and made it his care not to injure or [Pg 247] offend any Power whatsoever; but never could he entertain the thoughts of purchasing the name of peace at the expense of suffering encroachments upon, or yielding up, what justly belongs to Great Britain, either by ancient possession or solemn treaties. That the vigour and firmness of his Parliament on this important occasion have enabled him to be prepared for such contingencies as may happen. ”